The Kennedy Legacy

Upon hearing of JFK's assassination, the nation and world
went into a period of shocked mourning. While Lyndon Johnson took the
oath of office, a twenty-four-year-old ex-Marine named Lee Harvey
Oswald, who had at one time sought citizenship in the Soviet Union,
was arrested for the murder. Two days later, Oswald was shot by
a Dallas nightclub owner named Jack Ruby. President Johnson then
appointed a seven-member commission, headed by the Supreme Court's
Chief Justice, Earl Warren, to investigate the assassination.
The "Warren Commission" Report, not published until September
of 1964, concluded that Oswald was almost certainly the only gunman,
and "found no evidence" that the killer "was part of any conspiracy,
domestic or foreign, to assassinate President Kennedy." Nevertheless,
the JFK's assassination has become a fertile breeding ground for
conspiracy theories, implicating everyone from the Soviet government
to angry segregationists, from Fidel Castro to organized crime
figures. Speculation continues unabated to the present day.

On November 24, 1963, JFK's body lay in state in the
rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. The funeral was held the following
day, and a million mourners lined the streets of Washington as
the body was borne first to St. Matthew's Cathedral for a Requiem
Mass, and then taken to Arlington National Cemetery. There, Jackie
Kennedy lit an eternal flame to mark his grave.

Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency, and would win
reelection in 1964. He pushed through landmark civil rights legislation, and
carried out a massive expansion of social services that came to be
called the "War on Poverty." But the "War on Poverty" had mixed
results, and the escalation of the war in Vietnam proved disastrous
for Johnson's presidency and late 1960s America. Meanwhile, tragedy
continued to plague the Kennedy clan. Robert F. Kennedy was elected
to the Senate from New York, and JFK's youngest brother Edward
Kennedy, known as "Teddy," was elected Senator from Massachusetts.
But the immensely popular Robert Kennedy saw his life cut short
by an assassin's bullet while he was running for the presidency
in 1968, and Teddy Kennedy's presidential aspirations were doomed
by his shadowy involvement in the accidental drowning of aide
Mary Jo Kopechne in 1969. More recently, JFK's son, the handsome
and much-beloved John F. Kennedy, Jr., crashed his plane into
the sea off Rhode Island with his wife and her sister on board.
A dark star, many people have noted, seems to hang over Joseph
Kennedy, Sr.'s descendants.

The argument over JFK's legacy, as a man and as a president, continues
unabated. After JFK's death, Jackie and JFK's aides helped mythologize
his presidency as a golden age, a second "Camelot." For many Americans,
especially those who came of age with his administration, an air
of nostalgia and lost idealism still hangs about JFK. More recently,
though, revisionist historians have emphasized his flaws–his foreign
policy blunders (Vietnam and the Bay of Pigs), the extent to which
his career was buoyed by his father's money and connections, his
endless affairs and willingness to hide the state of his health
from the American people, and the way he and Robert Kennedy skirted
the law while in office by using wiretaps and intimidation against
their political enemies.

A balanced assessment of JFK's time in office must recognize
his errors, while crediting his undeniable accomplishments. He
fouled up the Bay of Pigs, but staved off nuclear war with the
Soviet Union over Cuba, and parlayed this détente into important
agreements such as the nuclear test-ban treaty. He may not have
done all he could for civil rights, but his symbolic support for
blacks was important in the fight against segregation. One can
argue that had he not been assassinated, JFK might have made the
same blunders in Vietnam that ultimately dragged Lyndon Johnson
down. One can counter, however, that JFK had an ability to rise
to the occasion during key moments, first as a war hero and then
as president. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, through his
rhetoric to unite the country and through programs like the Peace
Corps, JFK inspired a generation of Americans in a way that few
presidents have managed to do–for this alone, he deserves admiration
and respect.